Written by Jenny Hanniver   

Undoubtedly there have been several genuine conspiracies in history. The Nazis pulled off quite a few. But be careful which ones you select. The first conspiracy theory I passionately believed in, when I was about 15, was the murder of the little Princes in the Tower of London in the 1480s! These true believers are convinced that Richard III, the last Plantagenet King of England, couldn't possibly have murdered his (rival) nephews. Instead the boys were done in by the evil usurper Henry VII, the first Tudor. In high school I actually joined an international society, the "Friends of Richard III". When I finally became a genuinely critical graduate student in Medieval studies I had to give it up. True, politicians--especially usurpers--tell flabbergasting lies to smear their dead rivals, and gullible folks are all too ready to piece together snippets of reality to "prove" a wide-sweeping but implausible notion, but Richard had motive, means and opportunity, while Henry had only the motive.

Over the years I gave up belief in UFOs from outer space, ESP, and other unlikely romances. The last one I believed was a conspiracy theory--that the Kennedy assassination was a widespread plot which could be proved by the x-rays of John Kennedy's head. They were kept secret--until Ted Kennedy released the x-rays. About that time an earlier analysis of recorded gunshot noises from Dealy Plaza, which supported multiple gunmen, was reanalyzed with up-to-date instrumentation, demonstrating that the multiple sounds were multidirectional echoes. A conspiracy theory no longer made sense.

I would not be devastated to find out that someone in the Bush government was involved in 9-11, but at present I'm skeptical. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof", and that level of proof is lacking. Most of all, it's wise to be skeptical of conspiracies that need to involve numerous plotters. The real conspiracies are likelier to be the brainstorms of only a few--such as Timothy McVeigh and one or two other militia terrorists--or which were led by highly secretive totalitarian groups or nations, like Japan, for example, plotting to secretly attack Pearl Harbor. While there is a Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory that involves President Roosevelt, I don't believe he knew about a planned attack ahead of time. While stationed at Pearl Harbor in the 1960s I didn't know a single World War II veteran who thought of FDR as a conspirator willing to kill thousands of Americans--not even any right-wing Republicans.

The reason is that in a relatively open society, when dozens of participants are needed to make a conspiracy work, people aren't likely to keep secrets. Someone like Deep Throat will blab or whistleblow.

We'd do much better to keep our eyes and ears open to the REAL conspiracies, the ones conducted openly and covered in the news, but spun to soothe and numb. Ever since the 1980s we knew (or should have known) about the rise of a gradual conspiracy of the radical right, including pseudo-Christian fanatics, Wall Street, Big Banks, Big Medicine, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Ag, Big Energy and Big Military Contractors, to monopolize and "outsource" industry, break the back of our working and white collar middle class, and make us hungry and docile. Add imperialists like Cheney, Rummy and Rove and there was a huge, ever-expanding, yet quite open conspiracy. A few journalists and insiders, from Kevin Phillips and Michael Moore to Brooksley Born, warned us ahead of time, but they have been ignored, ridiculed or silenced. After the end of Equal Time, FOX News's propaganda machine has succeeded all too well, lulling the public with distracting lies, while creating hysteria, apathy and gullibility.

We should have been building grassroots groups and fighting back from the outset. It may be too late.